Almost-Forgotten Reality TV I am Guilty of Liking

Some of these I genuinely loved to watch, others introduced me to "hate-watching", which in theory I find pointless but somehow did anyway.

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Gene Simmons Family Jewels

I'm not even ashamed of this one. By far my favorite family with their own reality show. Of course it falls victim to clearly staged scenarios and canned dialogue, but it's sprinkled in with enough fun and genuinely affecting moments that it's all worth it.

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Kid Nation

A bunch of kids try to run their own town with minimal adult involvement. We watched this in my sociology class in high school, and I really liked it, but my class got like two weeks behind so I started watching it obsessively on my own. Some of the kids were annoying, but there were also kids that were absolute treasures and give me so much hope for the future.

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Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive

Okay, this one I'm a little ashamed of, though to be honest, I don't remember much about it other than I watched the whole thing during a marathon one day. Described as "City Slickers" meets "The Simple Life" meets "The Real World", this show involved ten children of celebrities and moguls playing cowboy. Cast included George Foreman III, Brittny Gastineau, Alex Quinn, and one Miss Kourtney Kardashian.

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Rock Star: INXS

Australian band INXS held a competition to find their new lead singer... Admit it, this premise (that you could somehow have a shot at joining a band you love) is one we've all dreamed of at some point, no?

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You're Cut Off!

Life coach Laura Baron runs a rehab for spoiled young women who need to shape up or their families are going to cut them off financially. Just so, so bad, but really good for satisfying your craving for schadenfreude.

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Oddities

And its spinoff, Oddities: San Francisco. Follows the day to day business of shops that sell...oddities— weird and unusual or obscure antiques and artifacts. I still long to go to both of these shops. The show always had great guests and fun history.

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It Takes a Thief

Two security experts who are also former thieves show people how easy it is to break into their home, and then how to better prevent a break-in or theft. I don't know why this show didn't make me more paranoid.

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It's On with Alexa Chung

Talk/variety show on MTV that I think was one of the first to try and integrate social media into its format. I don't know if I actually liked this or if I'm just a fan of Alexa Chung.

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Sunrise Earth

To this day, I think this is one of the greatest programs ever. No dialogue, just one hour of a sunrise in real time from various locations across the globe. I might actually be less opposed to waking up early if I could still catch this every now and again.